Heritage Skills
Discover your new favorite hobby with a Heritage Skills class at Fort Walla Walla Museum.
Fort Walla Walla Museum is excited to offer a new series of Heritage Skills classes to members and guests. These classes take hobbies and handicrafts out of history books and put them into the hands of participants, with skilled instructors demonstrating the techniques needed to keep these traditions alive.
Guests may be required to sign a wavier to participate in certain courses. To pay for a course via cash or check please call (509) 525–7703.
Participants will use old tools and make a clock by laminating wood. The clock face and mechanism will be provided and will fit into the wooden structure.
Each participant will come away from the class with a clock like the one pictured that they built themselves.
This class will take place over the course of four Sundays in a row, from September 20th through October 11th, from 1 p.m.–3 p.m. all days.
Participants must be 18 years or older; hazardous and sharp tools!
This class requires caution and appropriate clothing, safety glasses will be provided.
Instructor Jim Cooper has 50 years of experience with woodworking, including 30 years managing furniture factories. Jim will be assisted by Bob Bonstead, whose experience with woodworking includes the restoration of dozens of historic fire lookout towers.
Have you been curious about cast-iron cooking? This course will cover the basics of cast-iron care, heat control, and baking. Participants will prepare a traditional breakfast with the Dutch oven techniques they have learned and enjoy the meal together while discussing more advanced cooking skills.
Participants will come away with knowledge of how to use their Dutch ovens to prepare a variety of dishes and learn the best ways to clean and store their cast iron for longevity. Enjoy a hands-on learning environment and build outdoor culinary skills.
This class will take place Saturday, October 10, from 9 p.m. to 5 p.m.
The price of the class includes a Dutch oven, which participants will take home with them.
Instructor John Spain has 20 years of experience with Dutch oven cooking, including for large groups.
He has competed in Chuck-wagon and Dutch oven cooking competitions, and holds a membership with the American Chuck-wagon Association.
Students will create a picture of Fort Walla Walla Museum’s 1859 Clark Cabin, which sits in the Pioneer Village. After a lunch break, students will enjoy a special tour inside the cabin and hear about its history from a Museum docent.
This class is recommended for children in elementary school.
This class will take place Saturday, October 17 from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Students are encouraged to bring their own lunch.
Instructor Joyce Anderson is an artist and has been sharing her expertise with students for years. She is thrilled to connect children to art through watercolor.
This course will cover how to scan photos, negatives, & slides. Handouts will be provided on various film types to help you date your family photos. We will discuss options for naming image files & how to add metadata, making it easier to find images. We will also talk about options for having old home movies digitized.
Each student will have a chance to digitize 3 or 4 of their own photos on Epson scanners.
This course will be offered twice, once in October and once in November. The class will run for 2 hours, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. for both sessions.
Instructor Julianne Hoppen began digitizing her mom’s photos in the late 1990s, which expanded to those of her siblings & cousins, aunts & uncles.
This led to Julianne’s aunt passing on a box of genealogy records & photos of her family’s grandparents. Since then, she has digitized photos, negatives, slides, Hi-8 tapes, and older home movies here at Fort Walla Walla Museum.
We have all seen documentaries of museum curators wearing white cotton gloves and performing a delicate restoration on some precious artifact. But what if the artifacts weigh 800 pounds and are a working part of our museum infrastructure? Our 1900 Fire Station #1 doors are a valued artifact of Walla Walla history and are literally the opening to our steam pumper fire engine exhibit. So when they start to show their age a bit, it is time for a restoration… a leather glove restoration.
Join us for a presentation on the questions, techniques, mysteries, and materials in bringing these large artifacts back to a working life while honoring their historic components. Participants will preview the coming freshening of the overall fire station exhibit and maybe even do a bit of restoration work.
This class will take place on Saturday, October 24, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Instructor Larry Nelson grew up the son of a carpenter working on home remodels and additions. Forty years ago he moved into a 1906 Craftsman home and has been restoring and carefully updating ever since. He likes keeping old things as living, working and vital.
What’s old is new again—regenerative agriculture combines modern science with many time-tested techniques to restore and strengthen soil. It is a holistic farming system that takes more effort, but aims to be healthier for the environment, livestock, and ultimately the people eating the food.
Participants will learn the ins and outs of this traditional farming technique and follow a guided tour of the Williams Brothers’ farm, where the practices of regenerative farming are still in use today.
This class will take place Saturday, September 26th from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Instructor Tom Williams and his brother Ray Williams are third-generation farmers, operating Williams' Hudson Bay Farm. Their certified organic and salmon-safe farm grows various wheat varieties, malting barley, pinto beans, Walla Walla Sweet Onions, and winter squash. The Williams’ supply grains to Bob's Red Mill, Cairnspring Mills, Camas Country Mill, and Bainbridge Organic Distillers; beans and oats to Oregon Grain and Bean; as well as organic Walla Walla Sweet Onions and organic winter squash to Charlie's Produce.
Contra dancing is a wonderfully vigorous, community-building activity. This class will accustom people to the fundamentals of hearing and stepping to the beat of the music and the musical phrase, as well as the basic moves of contra dancing.
There is nothing so necessary to human beings as the dance…without the dance, a man would not be able to do anything….All the misfortunes of man, all the baleful reverses with which histories are filled, the blunders of politicians and the failures of great leaders, all of this is the result of not knowing how to dance.
—The Dancing Master in Moliere’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (1670)
This class will take place on Saturday, November 15, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.
In 1992, in order to bring the contra dancing experience to more people, Instructors Barbara and Dan Clark offered a beginning contra dance class at Walla Walla Community College, followed by a second advanced segment. Since then, they have presented successful contra dance classes in a variety of settings.
They hope this lively tradition will continue for many more!
In this class, you will explore time-honored preservation techniques like canning, fermentation, and drying. Learn good safety practices for home preservation. You will be able to take home a jar of soon-to-be homemade sauerkraut.
This class will take place over two Sundays in a row, Sunday, July 26 & August 2, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. both days.
Instructor Kristin Fry is a teacher and office manager with a lifelong interest in heritage skills and Northwest history. She learned to can and preserve from her mom and grandma, without whom this class would probably not be happening!
Throughout most of the Nineteenth Century, candles were an important fact of life for providing light, safety, and comfort. Candle makers had to make prodigious quantities to keep customers supplied. At Bruce Mansion in Waitsburg, Gary Lentz of Waxing Gibbous Candles has made nearly 200 candles in one day using a large wax-filled kettle, a wood fire, string, and paraffin or beeswax for over 30 years. Now you can learn to do it, too.
This 4-hour class starts with melted paraffin, strings, and sticks. 30-40 cycles of cooling, dipping, cooling, dipping and heating wax are necessary. You will be able to leave with some candles you made yourself.
This class will take place Saturday, August 22 from 10 a.m.–2 p.m.
Participants must be 18 or older; open flame and hot wax!
Bring leather gloves & wear clothes you don’t mind getting wax on.
When not making candles, Instructor Gary Lentz is a docent and living historian at Fort Walla Walla Museum. He has lived and reenacted history for decades in order to learn what it was really like.
Meet five famous people from 19th-century Pacific Northwest American history. They are Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809), David Douglas (1799-1834), Thomas Nuttall (1786-1859), Charles Emile Bindire (1836-1897), and William Lee Dice (1882-1919). This course will cover how these men have tied our history here to the natural world.
This subject is an important part of not only Walla Walla history, but northwest history.
This class will take place Sunday, August 23, from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Museum grounds with a brief walking tour through Fort Walla Walla Park.
This class will be led by local naturalist, author, and educator Mike Denny. He has co-authored five books and narrated two nature documentaries about the forests and deserts of the Pacific Northwest.
Learn the basic skills of tapering, bending, scrolling, and twisting metal. Work will be performed on a traditional coal forge using the same tools used over 150 years ago. This is a great opportunity to try your hand at an historical craft and possible future hobby. Make a small project to take home with you.
This class will take place Saturday, September 12 from 10 a.m.–4 p.m.
Participants must be 18 years or older; open fire, hot coals, and sharp tools!
This class requires caution and appropriate clothing, safety glasses will be provided.
Instructor Clinton Bouslaugh has 35 years of blacksmithing experience as a hobbyist, mostly utilizing coal forges. In those years, he has performed blacksmith demonstrations at mountain man rendezvous, fairs, museums, schools, and Washington and Oregon state parks. He has taught the blacksmithing merit badge to Boy Scouts for 20 years.